MEDIA STORM: MORE THAN A PODCAST
“Advocates do not need to be a voice for the voiceless, they just need to give us the mic.” – Alison Turkos, rape survivor speaking on Media Storm
Media Storm is an ethical news venture which launched in late 2021 and incorporated in early 2023, fronted by a now multi-award-winning podcast by the same name. It was founded by two journalists to execute and embody targeted editorial reform in the news sector, based on malpractices they discovered were ingrained while working within leading national outlets.
Our core principle is to provide ‘right of reply’ to marginalised groups that are denied due representation in everyday news coverage. This means prioritising refugee voices in immigration coverage, indigenous and frontline voices in climate coverage, or people with experiences of homelessness, disability, prison, addiction, sexual assault, or racism (and so on) in social policy discussions affecting them.
Beyond platforming their voices, the goal is to educate listeners in how to critically consume mainstream news to ensure a level of media literacy conducive to true democracy, and to lobby other news outlets to make the same editorial commitment.
Goals:
- To force critical reflection by members of the news industry on editorial standards that stem from, and reinforce, oppressive social structures, or practices that serve commercial agendas at the cost of public service commitments
- To educate the wider public on how to critically consume mainstream news, by helping them to understanding the commercial, social, cultural and political biases at play, and by providing them with a direct ear to underrepresented individuals at the heart of the story
- To campaign for, and demonstrate by execution, a more empathetic, ethical and non-exploitative style of journalism
- To build trust and collaboration between marginalised communities and mainstream journalists
The problem:
- A failure by the world’s news outlets to recognise and admit that there are limits to journalistic ‘objectivity’ in an industry that is highly demographically selective, and to amend this through rapid diversification
- A systematic oversight by journalists and editors to seek out and include testimonies from marginalised communities in coverage directly about them
- The exploitation of highly vulnerable individuals in sensationalist news coverage designed for commercial gain, at the cost of accuracy and social unity
- We believe these editorial practices not only feed social divisions and prejudices, but compromise accuracy, impartiality and fairness in the news, while giving policymakers a skewed sense of the real day-to-day issues affecting their communities
Our solution:
- To platform individuals from marginalised communities, or with traumas and vulnerabilities, who have suffered as a result of underrepresentation and exploitation by the news media, and engage with them as experts-by-experience rather than ‘case studies’
- To record their first-hand reflections on the inaccuracies, myths and stereotypes that are widespread in news coverage as a result of their underrepresentation in and by the media, as well as the exploitative and traumatising engagements many of them have had with journalists in the past
- To broadcast these learnings to the public via Media Storm podcast (and secondary coverage), as well as using them to develop training materials for industry use
- To actively investigate underreported issues that matter to these communities, with a focus on seeking solutions
- To produce these investigations for public consumption via Media Storm podcast (and secondary coverage), as well as using working with implicated institutions on structural improvements, for example by providing them with access to data or giving consultations
- To chair current affairs debates that prioritise the testimonies of people with high real-life stakes and professional expertise, rather than pitting opposers against one another in reductive, sensationalist and hyperpolarised panels, as often seen in broadcast news